


big sisters and little sisters

by alljuststars (allthelight)



Category: Gallagher Girls Series - Ally Carter
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Gen, Humour, Light Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Canon, Sisterly bonding, Smidge Of Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:28:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25249915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allthelight/pseuds/alljuststars
Summary: '“So,” Rachel begins as soon as they sit down, not wasting any time. Abby supposes she should be glad her sister waited that long. “Tell me what happened.”Abby looks down at her fingers, a dead giveaway but there’s no point in pretending with Rachel. She can see past all of her tells anyway, she might as well let them show. “It’s nothing.”'Abby and Rachel have a talk. There are things you can never hide from your sister. Pre-canon.
Relationships: Abigail Cameron/Edward Townsend, Rachel Morgan & Abigail Cameron
Comments: 5
Kudos: 17





	big sisters and little sisters

**Author's Note:**

> I apologise now for the obscure fic ideas I keep having but I just love writing these different relationships that weren't explored as much in the books. What I did for Townsend and the MI6 ladies (more of Etta and Marjory coming soon btw), I gave Abby Rachel since there really are things you can't hide from your sister. 
> 
> I also took a lot of liberties with it. It's meant to be canon-compliant, but I have assumed *a lot* of things so if any of them are contradictory to canon then please let me know and I shall fix it. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy it and are all staying safe and well! If you have any fic ideas/ anything you'd like to see then please let me know and I'll try my best for you :)

“So,” Rachel begins as soon as they sit down, not wasting any time. Abby supposes she should be glad her sister waited that long. “Tell me what happened.”

Abby looks down at her fingers, a dead giveaway but there’s no point in pretending with Rachel. She can see past all of her tells anyway, she might as well let them show. “It’s nothing.”

The waitress brings their coffees on a gleaming silver tray and Abby uses the opportunity to check the rooftops of the buildings opposite the café they sit in front of. They aren’t here for a mission, but old habits die hard and Abby’s been chastised enough recently for not being careful enough. She’s not going to give anyone a second chance.

Rachel thanks the waitress in French and then turns back to Abby, demurely taking a sip in a way that would make Madame Dabney proud. Rachel wasn’t taught by Madame Dabney, though. Only Abby was. It’s facts like this – small, insignificant, throwaway – that remind her that, though they may both be in the same story, they’re never really going to be on the same page.

“Don’t lie to me, Abs. Don’t tell me things, sure, but don’t lie to me.”

Abby knows that Rachel hates half-truths almost as much as she hates lies. She doesn’t like being in the dark about what her nearest and dearest have been up to. For as long as Abby can remember, her sister has always known everything about her. When she was ten her kindergarten boyfriend kissed her on the lips for three seconds, and though Abby kept her face perfectly blank when she got home and was asked about her day, Rachel still came up to her later and raised her eyebrow and said, _so tell me, do I need to kill him or not?_

Spies will never know everything about each other. It’s just a fact of the game. But even so, even after all of these years, it’s a fact Abby finds hard to reconcile. It’s been a hard lesson to learn that this fact applies to her, and even more applies to the relationship with her sister.

Some things will never change, though, and it’s the look on Rachel’s face that on the surface seems innocent, but suggests a level of probing that only she can ever manage, and has perfected even more since she became a mother.

“Alright,” Abby sighs, rolling her eyes. “Something happened. But I don’t want to talk about it.”

Rachel nods knowingly, but it’s a false understanding. One way or another the truth will be told, but Abby’s determined to not give up quite so easily. “How are your injuries healing?” Abby goes to say that she’s fine but Rachel glares and says, “The truth, please.”

She sighs. “Hurts a little.” Out of habit she rolls her neck from side to side, and gently brings her fingertips to touch the side of her face, trying not to think about the last person that did that. “But that SkinAgain stuff you brought is fantastic. You can’t even see my pores, never mind any knife scars.”

“Dr Fibs is a genius,” Rachel shrugs, laughing as she does. “Being faculty certainly has some perks.”

“An unlimited supply to the good stuff is definitely a perk I could get used to.” Abby takes a sip of her coffee, looking around the Parisian street. “Unfortunately, I’m too used to this to give it up just yet.”

“Who said anything about giving this up?”

Abby tilts her head. “Come on, Rach. You always try to seduce me with a job offer every time you see me.”

“I don’t try to s _educe_ you. I just let you know that you could. But you’re young, you’re in the prime of your career. I would never make you give all that up.” She shakes her head, still smiling, but Abby knows her sister as well as Rachel knows her, and she can see what’s really underneath. “You’re not some washed-up relic like me.”

It’s meant to be a joke. She’s meant to laugh, because let’s be honest Rachel is nowhere near old and certainly not washed up, but it’s not funny. There’s an urge to reach over and squeeze her big sister’s hand, but she can’t, because it would mean admitting there’s a vulnerability that she’s just not ready to see. So instead she leans slightly in and says, “You’re not past it. It’s just a different kind of life. We get why you had to leave. And it’s not like you ran away or anything. You went-”

“ _Home_ ,” Rachel finishes, and Abby’s reminded that yes, there are things that will forever separate them, but there are also things that will forever join them, too.

“Yeah, exactly.” Then she allows herself a cheeky smile. “Headmistress of the Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women is nothing to scoff at, you know.”

“Believe me, I know,” Rachel says as she swallows. “Sometimes I wonder why I was crazy enough to take it on.”

Abby eyes her. Rachel was built for responsibility- a fact she can personally attest to having been her much younger sister all her life. There’s almost nothing that fazes her, and she’s a hard woman to intimidate. And yet there’s also a little bit of a wild side to her, a reckless edge that nobody ever sees until it’s too late. It makes her the perfect person to ensure the Gallagher Academy is utilised the way it was intended, and simultaneously bring it into the future.

“You were crazy,” Abby agrees. “But there’s nobody better than you.”

Rachel looks at her for a long moment and it’s the probing glance that reminds of the time she was eighteen and had come home more than tipsy and had tried to sneak up to her room, not expecting to see Rachel at home _and_ standing on the stairs. “Wow,” she says slowly now, exactly the way she had back then. “It must have been bad if you’re complimenting me.”

“Hey, I’m much more likely to compliment you than you are to compliment me, thank you very much.” Abby sniffs, drinking a too-large gulp of her coffee. It scalds her throat on the way down and she tries not to show it.

“Put milk in it if it’s too hot,” Rachel says without missing a beat and Abby does as she’s told, albeit sullenly. “There you go.”

“You don’t need to ‘mom’ me, you know. I’m not the squirt. I’m an adult.”

“Then don’t act like a child. Tell me what happened.”

Immediately Abby’s skin begins to itch and she tells herself it’s the wounds on her face. But they healed weeks ago and only the memory of them remains. Only the memory of a lot of things remain.

She shrugs and begins playing with a sugar packet, spinning it around in her fingers as if she can spin away the question. “It’s nothing. He – _it._ I mean _it_ doesn’t matter.”

Abby would kick herself but she’s already entirely sure that Rachel knew anyway, or she wouldn’t have that look on her face like a cat that’s devoured the cream, or a spy that’s just gotten her sister to admit to trouble with her boyfriend. _Not_ boyfriend, not really. But something. Most definitely something indeed.

“He?” One neatly plucked eyebrow rises into a flawless forehead, that Rachel has always had, even through puberty. “We’re speaking about a certain MI6 operative?”

“Alright, alright. There’s no reason to look so proud of yourself. I practically gave that one to you.”

“I’m not proud of myself.” But Abby knows that she is a little bit. “I just… what happened, Abs?”

It’s that motherly, gentle tone that almost oversets her, and before she knows it tears are stinging the corner of her eyes. If she tells Rachel she knows she’ll be supportive, and she’ll hold her while she cries and she’ll give all kinds of wonderful solutions that would help, and would be a paddle in this situation where she’s most definitely up the creek without one. There’s such an ache within her to do it, to let herself be weak in front of her one person who would always prop her up no matter what, but she can’t. Matt is gone- Rachel’s _husband,_ the _father of her child **-**_ almost surely forever, and how can Abby moan about someone who is still alive but just incredibly angry at her, when her sister has gone through that? How can she, with any sort of conscience, cry about this when Rachel has taken the lowest blow life could have dealt and has somehow, someway, managed to keep on moving.

Rachel would understand. She would never hold it against her. She would even be hurt if she knew. But Abby can’t give her Matt, and she can’t turn back time and go to Rome like he wanted her to. As much as she wishes that she could almost every damn day, she can’t, and so she does the only thing she can. Keeping it to herself might hurt, it might feel like barbed wire in her heart, but it hurts a lot less than giving her big another thing to worry about would.

“It’s fine, Rach,” she says, and even manages to make it sound sincere. “It was always going to happen eventually.”

“Ah,” Rachel says knowingly, and Abby wonders if she does. Probably. “I liked him, you know?”

“You did?!” She doesn’t mean to speak so loudly and doesn’t realise she has until she feels around twenty pairs of eyes on her. Saying a saccharine _désolée_ around her, she looks at Rachel with a mixture of disgust and surprise. “You met him for one day. I worked with him for _five months_ – five months, Rach – and most of that time I could barely stand him.”

“He was a bit arrogant, I’ll admit.” Abby scoffs and Rachel narrows her eyes. “But he was a decent operative and clearly a good man. Plus it was easy to see how well the two of you worked together.”

Has her sister been swapped with a double? Abducted by aliens? Gotten too close to one of Dr Fibs’ experiments? “ _Well together?”_ She splutters incredulously. “You saw us, right? We argue. He thinks his way is always the right way and he’s a superior agent just because he can speak Swahili fluently and that he never made a mistake on a mission in his damn life.”

“Oh, so exactly like you then,” Rachel deadpans. “Only in your case, it’s Mandarin.”

“I got 100% on every single Mandarin exam. I think I earned those bragging rights.”

“Maybe he earned them in Swahili.”

“Listen to yourself! I can’t believe you actually _like_ Edward Townsend. Nobody likes him.”

Rachel sighs and takes another sip of her coffee. “Well, you clearly didn’t seem to mind when you were sleeping with him.”

In hindsight, Abby wouldn’t have chosen to take a swig at that particular moment but unfortunately, she did and the result is a lot of coughing and spluttering and downright choking that she’s a little bit ashamed of considering she’s a CIA agent. Rachel does nothing but simply hand her a napkin and say, “Bit of an overreaction.”

“Just wasn’t what I was expecting to you say.” Abby tries to compose herself. “I didn’t realise you knew.”

Rachel just gives her a look as if to say _I’m a spy and your big sister,_ which is a fair point, it must be admitted.

She sighs. “Just because we had a… _whatever_ , doesn’t mean that I liked him. And I definitely don’t think he liked me.”

“Probably not, but anyone could clearly see that you were important to him.”

“Really?”

The word is softly spoken, the question is tentative because Abby is genuinely asking for the answer. Whatever they had was known between her and Townsend, but was is so obvious to other people? Did his… feelings for her really run that deep? The events of the last few weeks have left her feeling like it was all one-sided, that she didn’t really know him at all.

“Oh, Abs,” Rachel sighs, and it’s like she’s sixteen years old with her first heartbreak all over again, as her big sister says, “Of course.”

Abby has to tear her eyes away and she looks around the Parisian street they sit on. There are couples everywhere, drinking together, laughing together, strolling arm in arm on the cobblestones. It’s not like they would _ever_ be one of those couples, showing their affection so openly to everyone around them, but it’s not the point. The reminder of romance is everywhere. _Stupid city of love._

 _“_ I was stupid,” she says quietly. “He was right. I was stupid, and I put the mission at risk. I – I don’t think he’ll ever forgive me for it.”

“You really think it’s the mission he’s upset about?”

“Of course it is. What else would it be?”

Sitting back in her chair, Rachel sighs and says, “I don’t know, but he’s experienced. He knows that sometimes not everything goes according to plan. Do you honestly think it’s because the target got away that he’s so angry with you?”

Abby honestly doesn’t know. When she thinks of him she just sees his face, tight with anger, in front of her, and she just hears herself yelling right back at him. _Reckless and stupid_ is what he called her. _No regard for anybody, not even yourself. A danger. Unable to be trusted. A liability._

At first she had just been angry, angrier than she’d ever been in her life. Her intelligence and her skill had been insulted, as though she hadn’t known what she had done was reckless, as though she hadn’t had a very good reason. The anger had been white hot and it had burned through her and the louder she yelled the louder he yelled right back and the sound had been bouncing off the walls long after she had slammed the door on her way out.

It still makes her angry, but the origin of his anger confuses her. Rachel’s right – targets get away, that’s just a fact of the game – and though he could be annoyed, maybe angry, there was no need for his utter fury that had engulfed everything around him, including her, and set it alight.

“Life’s too short, Abby.” There’s the vulnerability in Rachel’s voice again, and it’s at this moment that Abby notices she’s still wearing her wedding ring. How she can bear to see it everyday, Abby can’t understand, but she can also understand that it’s maybe just as unbearable to take it off. That would be too final. Once it’s off, you can’t ever really put it back on.

“It’s not the same,” she says sadly, trying to smile. “I’m sorry but it’s just not the same.”

There’s a heavy moment of silence between the two of them, as though there’s a lot more than just empty air separating them from each other. The fairy tale romance of Rachel and Matthew, Abby was never going to get, and Rachel would never find herself in this messy situation with angry ex-somethings. Same book but different pages. Another reminder of that,

“Do you want me to kick his ass for you?” Rachel offers eventually, and Abby knows she’s only half-joking. She’s kind of grateful for it.

“No,’ she chuckles, reaching for her sister’s hand. “No, it’s alright. I seem to remember when you kicked my high-school boyfriend’s ass. We don’t need a repeat of that.”

“I maintain that he threw himself into that lamppost, and if you asked him I think he would maintain that, too.” Rachel smiles innocently. “He did swing first.”

She’ll give her that. He probably did. He just also probably wasn’t expecting a CIA trained operative to swing back. “I appreciate the offer, but this is a little different.”

“I could do it,” Rachel says. “The bigger they are the harder they fall.”

“Yeah, but I really do not want to be responsible for staring an international incident.” She leans back in her chair. “We’ll both of us just have to let this one go.”

“Fine, but if you won’t let me hurt him then at least call him.”

Sometimes she wonders how her sister’s mind works, and which one of them is almost a decade older than the other. “How does that even compare? So the options are another war with the British, or a screaming match that will probably end up with me flying over there to kill him, resulting in war with the British. Gee, Rach, some pretty solid options you’ve given me here.”

“Stop being dramatic. Nobody will go to war with anyone. Just think about it?”

Underneath all of their bickering and disagreeing and fussing, Abby knows that all Rachel wants is for her to be happy, and that’s really all she wants for her sister also. So she promises to think about it, because at least she’s able to give her that.

They talk about other things for a while. How Rachel is trying to get the trustees to agree to helicopter flying lessons and how Madame Dabney sulked for three weeks after handkerchief embroidery was scrapped from the curriculum, and replaced with _practical sewing._ They talk of Abby getting an apartment, only to be caught by the landlord hiding a semi-automatic rifle -that she was just looking after for somebody - in the ceiling, which had required some panicked phone calls and a whole load of memory modification tea and, eventually, a new apartment. They talk of their other sisters, the non-biological kind, and what everyone seems to be getting up to these days. They talk of their parents. They talk of Joe. And, eventually, as Abby knew she was always going to, she manages to work up the courage to ask:

“And how is the squirt?”

“Good.” Rachel’s smile brightens considerably. “She’s really good. Better than you or I ever were at her age.”

Abby laughs, not doubting the truth of it at all. She knew the Gallagher Academy would never be impossible for her niece. “Yeah, well, she’s got good genes. I wouldn’t expect anything else.”

“She’s so like him,” Rachel says softly, and it’s all Abby can do not to cry. Then Rachel shakes her head and says, “Do you want to see a picture?”

“Of course I do.” Even though there’s a part of her that almost doesn’t want to see. Rachel hands her a picture of three girls, taken on school photo day clearly, judging by the way everyone is pristinely dressed with not even a hair out of place.

“I took this of the three of them,” Rachel says. “Last September when they all came back. Those are Cammie’s roommates – Liz and Bex. I thought it was cute.”

“It is,” Abby says. “Bex? Is that Abe Baxter’s girl?”

“Uh-huh. And yes, she’s exactly like her parents.”

“I still can’t believe you managed to get a British girl into the Academy.”

Rachel shrugs as though it wasn’t that hard, but Abby knows the grief she got from the majority of the trustees, as well as the CIA, all so she could do a favour for a friend. Though judging from the way the girl has her arm around her roommate’s shoulders, maybe the girl also did a favour for Rachel, without even realising it.

“It was worth it,” she says. “They’re as thick as thieves, those three. They’re good for each other. That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? The sisterhood.”

“Yeah,” Abby agrees softly. “I’m glad she has those kind of people in her life.”

“So am I. It hasn’t been the easiest for her. I was so worried she would just disappear after Matt left. She was so quiet for so long. But the school has been good for her. Her friends are good for her. She’s grown up in a lot of ways.”

Abby looks at the picture again, this time ignoring the other two in favour of the one in the middle. Neither the tallest nor the smallest, she should look somewhat out of place where she stands, but she doesn’t. She just fits right in, as if this is where she was meant to be. Very few people are born with a gift like that. The last one was one of Abby’s best friends.

Cammie’s taller now than when Abby last seen her, and more muscular (though not as much as Bex), with slightly darker hair. Her smile is the same though, a kind of cheeky grin that is absolutely all her father, and her intelligent eyes which are all her mother. Cammie would have been thirteen when this picture was taken, and will be fourteen now. It’s been over two years since Abby has seen her. She misses her more than she can say.

“The squirt got big,” she manages to say, and hands the picture back, almost reluctantly. “She looks well, Rach. And happy. She looks happy.”

“Yeah, she does.” But it sounds like relief and Abby knows the feeling. Cammie’s well-being is never far from her mind, but she also knows that she’s well looked after. She’s safe. She’s happy. And Abby’s a little jealous because she can never imagine being truly happy ever again.

“You should visit. She’d love to see you.”

There was a time when Abby rarely let a month go by without seeing her niece, and she dropped around so often she was practically a permanent fixture in that DC townhouse. She was there for all of Cammie’s big moments, a third parent but with less rules and more sweets. The role of aunt was one she took seriously, and she vowed Cammie would learn all of her bad habits from her and make some of her own.

Now she hasn’t seen her niece since her elementary school graduation, just before Matt disappeared. She’d remembered the look on Cammie’s face as children were handed certificates for _being kind_ and _the tidiest student_ and _best at math tests._ Cammie had been breaking codes since she was four years old – no wonder she looked so unimpressed! Abby had laughed out loud at one point, before being severely reprimanded by Rachel, then being told she had a point by Matt.

“I can’t,” Abby says. “I just can’t.”

“Abby…”

“I wasn’t there for the funeral, and I wasn’t there afterwards, and I didn’t go to Rome! I can’t look her in the eyes, Rach, and know that I’m the reason her dad’s dead.”

“ It’s not your fault,” Rachel says, her tone hard. “He didn’t go missing in Rome, Abby. You are _not_ the reason he is gone.”

But even if she were Rachel wouldn’t tell her, she would protect her until the end, and so Abby has a hard time believing it.

“And Cammie doesn’t know about Rome. And she won’t care how long you’ve been gone. She’ll just be so happy to see you.”

The happiness would be dimmed, however. A light that had burned bright in Cammie Morgan since she was born will have long flickered and died. It’s not the ghost of Matthew Morgan she’s afraid of; she could quite happily sit and tell his daughter stories about him for hours. But the stories would all have the same ending eventually, and that’s the part she couldn’t stomach.

Abby was part of the recovery team sent to find him, to turn over every rock and leaf until they found some sort of trail. They looked for three weeks before they told Rachel, and then two of them continued to look. It’s why she missed the funeral, it’s why she never called. It drove her crazy. Her and Joe had looked for God knows how long. They interviewed assets and buried themselves in records and they flew ridiculous distances for the smallest crumb of information and still they turned up with nothing. It was almost too ridiculous to accept. For a man who was so good, so skilled, so _loved,_ to have just disappeared, and for them to have searched and screamed and prayed and still not have any answers… how, in any sense of the word, was that fair?

“She’d ask eventually, Rachel. You know she would. There will always be some part of her wondering why I wasn’t there for you guys.”

Rachel nods, conceding the point. Cammie would want the answers, and she’s still too young to figure out that sometimes, you’re just better off not knowing.

“You’ll need to see her at some point,” Rachel says gently. “Hasn’t she lost enough already?”

It’s a low blow but a fair point. After all, Abby knows where she stands. It’s Cammie above all else. And it makes sense because that’s what Abby would do, too.

“I will,” she says, and finds that she means it. “Not yet but I’ll speak to her. I promise.”

She has to be ready to be the fun aunt again, otherwise there’s just no point.

Rachel nods, and the ‘mom’ leaves her features, leaving the ‘big sister’ to slide back in. “Just like you’ll speak to Townsend?”

Abby groans. “You’re not giving me any fun choices here, Rach.”

“Oh I don’t know. One of them, if done correctly, could lead to a whole lot of fun.”

While she didn’t exactly foresee this one, Abby was wise enough not to take a drink until her sister spoke and, as such, has avoided any choking mishaps. “You need to stop that,” she warns. “Don’t think I don’t see your matchmaking.”

“I’m not matchmaking anything. I just think it would be a shame for you to lose such a good friend.”

 _Friend?_ Her and Edward Townsend were a lot, but they were never friends. “Oh, would you look at the time. I think I best be off,” Abby says, and throws a few euros down onto the table. Never one for goodbyes, she stands and says, “Well this has been fun, Rach. I’ll catch you in DC in the winter?”

She should have known her big sister would never let her go that easily. Rachel stands, too, and before Abby knows what’s happening she’s on her side of the table and has her in a tight hug. It takes her a second, but eventually Abby relaxes into it, and squeezes back just as fiercely.

“Be safe. Be good. You know where I am if you need _anything,_ alright?” And she swallows audibly before she says, “I love you, Abs.”

They’re sisters in more than one sense of the word, and their bond is truly unbreakable and yet also unspoken. They never have to say it. So it’s unsurprising that a lump comes to Abby’s throat and it takes a few seconds longer than she would have liked for her to be able to say, “I love you, too.”

Rachel releases her and gives her that look that is equal parts love and equal parts fear. A look that she equates with Cammie and not herself and it hits her just how much her sister is afraid of never seeing her again, of one day getting called into that meeting and being told that Abigail Cameron is never coming home.

She forces a smile and hopes it reaches her eyes, as she walks away backwards. “DC in winter, Rach. I’m expecting a big, non-homemade meal. And wine. Lots of it.”

She just catches sight of her sister’s smile before she turns around, and she continues to strut away whilst feeling her face crumple inwards. They’ve had their roles for so many years. Big sister, little sister. Responsible and reckless. The familiarity of that soothes them both, and the parts they play are well-known. Abby ensures for Rachel, for herself, that this will never change. There are many things she cannot give, but this is the one thing she can.


End file.
